Sick chicken in GA-- advice needed

[New2theFlock]

Hello All,
One of our eight backyard chickens is sick, and I'd love some advice on how to care for her. She is lethargic and has yellow diarrhea starting (or at least noticed) yesterday. See pic where you can see what's coming out of her.

Here's what my family and I have done so far:
1) I cleaned her up and moved her to the chicken hospital in the garage.
2) Went to my local farm store and got advice to put iodine in her water along w apple cider vinegar (already there).
3) bought kicken chicken and put it on her beak and under her wing as an older gentleman shopping there advised.

People at the farm store think it may be avain flu.

Meanwhile, we did a deep clean of the coop and run to help the other girls not catch it:
1) Cleaned out their waterer with vinegar and refilled, adding apple cider vinegar w water as usual
2) removed everything from coop itself, pressure washed and cleaned with vinegar
3) added another waterer w kicked chicken and apple cider vinegar in the water
4) changed our sand on the floor of the coop replacing with pine shavings temporarily. Materials availability issue again.
5) added gravel to floor of covered run to get them out of the mud. All local stores completely out of the not toxic mulch, woodchips, pine straw, etc. Will add other material on top today hopefully, but run is on a slope and had to do something b/c of all the rain.

I'm going to check on her now. First time this morning. Any suggestions? Other than losing one of our girls to water belly this summer, our flock (3 years old) has been healthy to date, so I'm new at the chicken hospital situation. Please advise.

 

[SmiYa0126]

What are you feeding them, is it possible stress molting?

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Went to my local farm store and got advice to put iodine in her water along w apple cider vinegar (already there).
3) bought kicken chicken and put it on her beak and under her wing as an older gentleman shopping there advised.

People at the farm store think it may be avain flu.

Kicken' Chicken is a vitamin supplement that is mixed in the feed. It will not do any good to apply it to her beak or under her wing.

If it were avian flu, she'd been a very poor condition with other symptoms and likely dead by now.

When is the last time she laid an egg?
Any bloat or swelling of the abdomen below the vent between her legs?
Any lice/mites?
Have you ever dewormed her?

The yellow urates could be an indication of liver dysfunction, but I've seen that in hens that have reproductive disorders.

Give her fresh clean water. You can add the supplement to her feed if you wish, the vitamins may do her good.
See that she's drinking well and her crop is emptying overnight.

 

[New2theFlock]

What are you feeding them, is it possible stress molting?

Hi. Our girls typically eat Egg Makers 15 crumbles w oystershell we mix in. Plus we try to do some kind of treat every other day: fruit, veges, weeds from garden, etc

 

[New2theFlock]

Kicken' Chicken is a vitamin supplement that is mixed in the feed. It will not do any good to apply it to her beak or under her wing.

If it were avian flu, she'd been a very poor condition with other symptoms and likely dead by now.

When is the last time she laid an egg?
Any bloat or swelling of the abdomen below the vent between her legs?
Any lice/mites?
Have you ever dewormed her?

The yellow urates could be an indication of liver dysfunction, but I've seen that in hens that have reproductive disorders.

Give her fresh clean water. You can add the supplement to her feed if you wish, the vitamins may do her good.
See that she's drinking well and her crop is emptying overnight.

Hi. The Kickin Chicken is liquid. This morning she is hanging in there in the chicken hospital. She wouldn't eat or drink while I was there, and didn't appear like any food/ water was gone overnight. Another shopper said to try Gatorade, so I put a small dish out there to see if maybe she'd drink that. Also cleaned out all dishes and bowls this morning. Poop still yellow and runny.

- When is the last time she laid an egg?
Not sure. We have 8 chickens that are 3 years old and typical get 3 or 4 eggs a day.

Any bloat or swelling of the abdomen below the vent between her legs?
- No. She looks a little skinny but other than that, normal in appearance. One part of the tip of her comb was dark yesterday when I took the picture, but today that is better. I put Kickin Chicken on it yesterday too, at advice of same gentleman. He has hundreds of free range chickens and seemed like a kind man who knew what he was doing.

Any lice/mites?
- The girls do shake their heads a bit, so ive wondered. We put diomaceious earth in the nesting boxes and floor of the coop from time to time as preventative. I've never seen indications of lice/mites in their feathers.

Have you ever dewormed her?
- no. Never seen worms in any poop, so didn't think there was a need to.

 

[New2theFlock]

Hi. Our girls typically eat Egg Makers 15 crumbles w oystershell we mix in. Plus we try to do some kind of treat every other day: fruit, veges, weeds from garden, etc

I'd not thought about stress molting, although several do seem to kind of always be molting. They have plenty of space, access to clean water and food, coop is not too hot or cold (although it is GA in summer), and although there are predators around, we've not seen them bothering the girls. But what would I look for re stress molting?

 

[dawg53]

You need to do a hands on close inspection for lice and/or mites on your caged hen, especially around her vent area where it's warm and moist. Look for lice eggs attached to feather shafts as well.
Lice are white, off white or straw in color. Mites are black or red in color. They suck blood causing anemia, then death. Treatment is Permethrin dust.

DE does nothing to prevent nor treat lice, mites, nor worms. You're not going to see worms in feces unless there's a heavy load and they are excreted, or a worm dies of old age and is excreted. Why would a parasite want to leave its host? Worms suck the life out of their host. Worm the caged hen and your other birds with Valbazen or Safeguard.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Any lice/mites?
- The girls do shake their heads a bit, so ive wondered. We put diomaceious earth in the nesting boxes and floor of the coop from time to time as preventative. I've never seen indications of lice/mites in their feathers.

Have you ever dewormed her?
- no. Never seen worms in any poop, so didn't think there was a need to.

You need to physically inspect your birds for lice/mites, look around the vent, under the wings, etc. for crawling bugs. Go out to your coop at night and rub a white paper towel along the roosting bars and see if there's bug or red (blood) that shows on the towel.
DE is not an effective treatment for lice and mites.
Permethrin based poultry dust and sprays are effective. Treat birds and housing in 5-7 day intervals if you see bugs.

Reproductive problems are common in laying hens. See that she's drinking and eating, that her crop is emptying. Do the best you can. Often all you can do is try to address symptoms and see how it goes.

You will not see worms in the poop. A fecal float will tell you if you need to deworm your flock. Gather a sampling of poop and take it to your vet for testing. If this is not possible, then treat with Fenbendazole (Safeguard liquid goat dewormer) at a dose of 0.23ml per pound of weight give orally once a day for 5 days in a row. https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...dications-to-all-poultry-and-waterfowl.73335/

 

[New2theFlock]

Hello All,
One of our eight backyard chickens is sick, and I'd love some advice on how to care for her. She is lethargic and has yellow diarrhea starting (or at least noticed) yesterday. See pic where you can see what's coming out of her. View attachment 3248978

Here's what my family and I have done so far:
1) I cleaned her up and moved her to the chicken hospital in the garage.
2) Went to my local farm store and got advice to put iodine in her water along w apple cider vinegar (already there).
3) bought kicken chicken and put it on her beak and under her wing as an older gentleman shopping there advised.

People at the farm store think it may be avain flu.

Meanwhile, we did a deep clean of the coop and run to help the other girls not catch it:
1) Cleaned out their waterer with vinegar and refilled, adding apple cider vinegar w water as usual
2) removed everything from coop itself, pressure washed and cleaned with vinegar
3) added another waterer w kicked chicken and apple cider vinegar in the water
4) changed our sand on the floor of the coop replacing with pine shavings temporarily. Materials availability issue again.
5) added gravel to floor of covered run to get them out of the mud. All local stores completely out of the not toxic mulch, woodchips, pine straw, etc. Will add other material on top today hopefully, but run is on a slope and had to do something b/c of all the rain.

I'm going to check on her now. First time this morning. Any suggestions? Other than losing one of our girls to water belly this summer, our flock (3 years old) has been healthy to date, so I'm new at the chicken hospital situation. Please advise.

Update: sick chicken pooped out this today: also look at the sore on her talon.

 

[SmiYa0126]

It looks like she has salpingitis, can you cut upen the tissue and take pictures of it? It also looks like she has bumble foot.